Doctor Who: Resolution (2019 New Years Special)

Yeah okay, that was a lot of fun!

Cons:

I'm not upset on principle that we didn't get a Christmas Special. That's totally fine. But I will admit, there's a lot less you can do with New Year's Day. It just doesn't have as many iconic elements. Ultimately, the time of the year didn't really influence the plot in any major way. There was some dialogue peppered in throughout, but it didn't really match the fun Christmas spirit that some of the past specials have managed to capture. It's a small point, but one I thought I'd mention.

I love seeing the Daleks return, I really do, but I do have to admit that I chuckled when the classic Dalek design finally appeared. The Dalek had been legitimately threatening as a squid thing, but I wasn't feeling properly scared of it in the big dramatic scene where it first appears in its traditional form. They really amped up the music and clearly wanted to make that a big moment, and I thought it fell a tiny bit flat.

Pros:

So much! This was a fun episode that kept me gripped from beginning to end.

First of all, I love that this team of friends has clearly become a well oiled machine. We hear talk of many of their adventures that happen off-camera, and it allows their friendship to escalate in a natural way. The Doctor takes them around to many different New Year's Eve celebrations so they can pick their favorites, which is just an adorable thing to do. It reminded me of one of my favorite things about Doctor Who as a whole. The Doctor has incredible power at her fingertips, but generally chooses to use it to help people where she can, and to bring joy to people and have fun, just because. It's so different from most over-powered people we see in fiction, who have some grand plan at the end of all their shenanigans, whether that plan be benevolent or evil.

I really liked the adorable archaeology couple. We didn't need to spend a lot of time with them to understand how much they cared for one another, and I thought it was really well done. The final shot of the episode shows the two of them holding hands, united through adversity and through mutual crushes and New Years Eve kisses, as the TARDIS zooms off with the Doctor and her best friends. It was a wonderful way to add a dash of romance into the story. (Other than the romance between the Doctor and Yaz, I mean. Anybody else feeling that?)

The real humanity of this episode came from Ryan's story with his dad. Once again, Graham and Ryan are the best at making me feel the feelings. Aaron, Ryan's absentee father, shows up to try and make amends. Ryan is really resistant to this, for good reason. Aaron and Graham then have a good talk, and at the end of the episode, Ryan saves Aaron's life and the two share a hug. Just typing it out like that doesn't convey the emotional resonance of this story. I think my favorite moment was when Graham got a box of Grace's stuff out for Aaron to look through. It was Aaron's stuff, that his mother had kept for him. Graham could have condemned Aaron and piled on yet another lecture, but instead he just talks about Grace, and asks Aaron why he didn't come to her funeral. Not for Grace, not for Ryan, but for himself. It was a beautiful moment of catharsis and you can really sense the healing begin.

Jodie Whittaker hasn't had a lot of really meaty emotional material in her first series, if you think about it. The stakes have only been personal for her insofar as she wants to protect her new friends, and keep people safe in general. I don't mind this, although I have noted it in earlier reviews, waiting for that moment when I would feel like this person was the same Doctor I've followed through so many adventures in the past. Through all of my own slight doubts, though, Whittaker has given a masterful performance. And here, finally, we see her come face to face with the oldest and baddest foe the Doctor will ever have. I loved all of the work Whittaker was doing here, particularly when her companions try to join her and she says that facing the Dalek is personal, and something she needs to do alone. We also get the ultimate bad-ass moment when the Dalek scans her, realizes she's the Doctor, and immediately freaks out and tries to exterminate her on the spot. The Doctor is a lover, not a fighter, but it is of course awesome when she gets to be kind of a bad-ass too.

Another overarching theme of Doctor Who is that people are always better when they work together. The Doctor will always want to keep her friends safe, sure, but she doesn't do things by herself just because. She asks for help when she needs it. I loved the nod to UNIT in this episode. The Doctor tries to contact them for assistance, but she gets roadblocked. Apparently the UK has had a falling out with her international partners. Hmmm... sounds like a not-so-subtle Brexit commentary. If the Doctor is all about coming together and uniting to do the right thing, then it's no wonder that something like Brexit would prove to be an irritating obstacle for her and her mission.

While Yaz got the short end of the storytelling stick once again, I like the material that's filling in the gaps in her screen-time. While Graham and Ryan have their family drama going on in several of this series' episodes, Yaz's place seems to have fallen in right beside the Doctor. She's always supporting her, always the first person the Doctor turns to when discussing a plan or while having a mild freak-out. I love how their relationship is developing, as the Doctor seems to answer to Yaz in a really fun way, and Yaz's loyalty is extremely apparent.

I mentioned that the moment when the Dalek was revealed was a little cheesy. But I did like so much of what was done here with this classic Doctor Who villain. We see that this particular Dalek was split into three pieces and buried on separate corners of the Earth by the ancient Britons who fought it. But now it's back. Apparently this Dalek was an early scout, coming to Earth centuries before. It has the power, in its squid form sans machinery, to latch on to people and take them as hosts. This is a fairly standard sci-fi idea for an alien of this design, but the fact that it's a Dalek makes it all the more creepy. We've seen what these Daleks are capable of achieving, so one getting loose in Sheffield feels like a legitimate threat. I was also genuinely scared for the life of the girl who was being possessed, and then later for Aaron's life, although luckily they were both able to fight back enough to be safe.

And that's that! Looks like our next series won't be out until 2020, so it will be some time before we get more of Whittaker's Doctor. I thoroughly enjoyed this series. I hope that by laying a solid groundwork, future series with this Doctor and these companions can get a little bit more adventurous. I can't wait!

9/10